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…For thy Children dead I'll be a son to thee!

“I don’t believe it,” whispered Mrs. Barstow to Sarah. “Not a word.”

“Nor do I,” Frances uttered.

The three ladies had their heads together, having seized the first opportunity in the days which followed, Gordon having gone to school and Maria occupied with her lessons.

“And even if it were so, it would make no difference to me,” Mrs. Barstow added staunchly.

“He was nothing but kindness to us, no matter what happened at the children’s ball or afterward.

Nothing but kindness to Sebastian and nothing but kindness to us.

I consider him—a son. Or as good as one.

He asked me to write to him! Is that not proof he considers himself bound to us? ”

“Certainly,” Frances agreed. “But now I rather wish he would marry the girl who jilted him. Or marry somebody. Because even if it is not true about him, there are such dangers even to have rumors of that nature floating about. It might injure his career—or worse!”

“How would the silly rumors in Iffley ever reach Portsmouth?” asked Sarah, trying to sound dismissive. Her insides were roiling to hear Frances wish a bride—any bride—on Mr. Langworthy.

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Barstow, her chin lifting. “Of course they won’t. Now that he is gone back, there is no connection anywhere between here and there to betray him.”

“Don’t say ‘betray,’ Mama!” Frances scolded.

“‘Betray’ implies that we believe he did something wrong. I mean—besides lying about having turned his ankle and where he was going. I suppose the only possible connection between Iffley and Portsmouth would be Robson’s cousin, the waiter at the Angel Inn.

But why should the waiter speak of Mr. Langworthy to anybody? ”

This was hardly reassuring, considering how the man had raced over to the Tree Inn the morning afterward to do exactly that, but seeing her mother’s and Sarah’s distress, Frances quickly added, “But of course the gossip would have to go by way of Newbury or London just like the coaches, and at least in the latter case, there are already so many reports and slanders flying about in town about so many people that one more counts for nothing.”

“True, true,” her mother nodded, determined to be persuaded. “Still, I may in my first letter to him advise him to tread carefully. We know, from the amusing stories he told us, that he is not by nature a…cautious man.”

No, Horace Langworthy was not a cautious man.

It was one thing to say she would write to him, however, and another actually to sit down and record such thoughts as these in black and white.

And though Mrs. Barstow thought much on the matter, the days passed with the task yet undone.

Until she began to say, “Perhaps it would be best if he wrote to me first. You gave him permission to, Sarah, and he might take offense if the first thing I wrote to him was, ‘Take care, for people are talking about you in Iffley’!”

And they were.

Not out in the open, perhaps, but behind doors and hands. At church the following Sunday, some went so far as to congratulate Dr. Rearden on being quit of such a guest, this message delivered with a knowing raise of the eyebrows and received with mumbles and sheepishness.

Thankfully, Mrs. Dere did not stoop to stir the coals.

Having said her piece to the family and to Sarah in particular, she was content to let the matter be forgotten.

“He was a charming man,” she told the parishioners gathered in the churchyard after the morning service, “though sadly not as forthcoming as one would wish. We will never know his relation to the servant Wrigley, I suppose, but whatever it was, no lasting harm has been done.”

“That’s very magnanimous of you, Mrs. Dere,” said Mrs. Lane huffily, “but it is only by the grace of God nothing seems to have been stolen, nor any of the youth corrupted.”

Mrs. Dere inclined her lovely head a few degrees in acknowledgement, but such was her ascendancy over Iffley society that those around her must give way, and the conversation might have turned to other subjects, had the baron not spoken up.

“I, for one, will refrain from drawing any conclusions about Mr. Langworthy, given the paucity of evidence,” he said in his soft way. “But I would hate to think him anything but a fine young man. A worthy young man.”

His niece by marriage gave a tight smile, but his cousin Mrs. Barstow looked as if she would like to kiss him for this speech, going so far as to loop her arm through his.

“Thank you, sir. I cannot think ill of any friend of my lost son. And if I were to learn Mr. Langworthy was guilty beyond doubt of—any number of crimes—I fear I might love him still.”

Such a declaration met with indrawn breaths, uncomfortable throat clearings, and a click or two of the tongue, but the rest of the Barstows thought variations of Hurrah!

What a gem Mama is, and, Sarah, emboldened, said, “Yes, I agree. My husband Sebastian thought Mr. Langworthy the best of men, and therefore I cannot do otherwise.”

Gordon told her later that the Tommies shared the Barstows’ opinion, “and they say so does Dr. Rearden, only he knows what side his bread is buttered on and doesn’t care to cross Mrs. Dere or his other congregants.

And Peter is torn, but I don’t hold it against him.

A boy has to be loyal to his mother, even if his mother is impossible. ”

Thus, over the course of a fortnight, the uproar gradually died away, starved of oxygen.

Mrs. Barstow began to talk again of writing to Horace Langworthy because, though neither said it aloud, she and Sarah were each secretly saddened by each passing day with no word from him.

“Perhaps now I need not refer at all to the circumstances in which he left,” she mused as they sat over their work in the parlor.

“If no one talks of it here any longer, after all, why need I mention it in a letter? I might simply talk of other things.”

Much as Sarah yearned for news, her doubts had also grown with each passing day.

Why did he not write to Mrs. Barstow? Was he, in fact, waiting for her to begin the correspondence?

Or, in returning to Portsmouth, had he so quickly forgotten them, swept up in his old life—finding a naval berth and taking up again with Mary Pence?

Sometimes Sarah thought she had imagined the scene between them in the cottage parlor. Other times she concluded she had invested it with far more meaning than he intended. The friendship he had offered, unsatisfying as it had been to her, had still meant more to her than to him.

News came soon from other sources which only put the Barstows more strongly in mind of Mr. Langworthy: the papers reprinted His Majesty’s Message to Parliament in early March, calling for the nation to be returned to a war footing, and the Commons responded by voting for those preparations.

“‘￡603,500 was then voted for wages of the 10,000 seamen for twelve lunar months,’” the baron read aloud to them after another Perryfield dinner, “‘￡290,000 for victuals, ￡330,000 for wear and tear of the ships, and another ￡27,000 for ordinance.’”

“Ten thousand seamen? That’s so many!” cried Peter, but alas—only one of the ten thousand occupied the Barstows’ thoughts.

He will find his new berth now, Sarah thought as she lay in bed that night. Oh, Lord, keep him safe! She did not care if he ever won a penny of prize money or an ounce of glory—only let him live! Please. Please. Let Mary Pence have him—

Only let him live.

“What do you think, Sarah?” her mother-in-law asked, holding out a sheet of paper. “I hardly knew what to say, but if war might be declared at any time, I thought I would not delay longer, lest it not reach him before he ships.”

The letter was brief, more of its apparent length due to Mrs. Barstow’s emendations than contents.

She wished him and his uncle well and hoped his return to Portsmouth had been everything that was pleasant…

the Barstows were well…Lord Dere read to them of the coming preparations for war, and it was natural to think of their dear friend Mr. Langworthy and what effect this might have on his prospects, etc.

“It will do very well, madam.”

“Is there anything I should add? It seems so cold, so formal, but I hardly know what more to say when there is so much which must be avoided.”

Sarah’s pulse sped. “What if—would it be friendlier, if the children were to add a sentence in their own hand? Or a little diagram or drawing, if they wanted. As a remembrance of each of them.”

“What a splendid idea, Sarah! And why only the children? Would he not then wonder why you and Frances could not be bothered to greet him?”

“Very well. You are right,” Sarah agreed, her spirits soaring. But a half hour later, after a fair copy had been made by Mrs. Barstow, and after Frances, Maria, and Gordon each appended a cheerful tit-bit, the sheet was passed to her, and her mind went blank.

He had spoken to her of friendship almost in the same breath that he encouraged her to “add a line” to Mrs. Barstow’s letters, and whatever she wrote here would be seen not only by him but also by the other Barstows on her end and by who knew whom on Mr. Langworthy’s.

Nor could she spend overlong at the desk, unless she wanted the children to wander over, inquisitive.

Like a child being forced to take a spoonful of medicine, Sarah screwed up her features in resolve and set pen to paper.

At a small table wedged into the corner of the Dolphin’s front room, Horace Langworthy fingered the letter which had reached him that morning.

His namesake uncle had shown no curiosity about it, seeing it bore no naval connection, but Langworthy stole out soon afterward to this inn in the High Street, a safe distance from Keppel’s and the George, which were so popular with navy men.

He could have laughed at himself for the way his hands trembled—if he had not been the one trembling.